tolkiens legendarium - What content is in the new Beren and Lúthien book compared to other published works?

Christopher Tolkien recently edited and released Beren and Lúthien, a new book highlighting one of the central stories of the entire mythology. I was expecting this to be a novelization similar in form to The Children of Hurin, but I've heard, as Wikipedia implies, that it is more like an annotated collection of the different versions and fragments of the story that JRRT had written over the years. We've seen multiple such accounts already, from The Lord of the Rings to The Book of Lost Tales.

So what does this new book actually provide? Is there any new content that was not previously published, or is this just a repackaged anthology?

Answer

Beren and Lúthien just collects different versions of the story and presents them in a way that shows the evolution of the tale from the earliest drafts to the latest. In the words of Christopher Tolkien in the preface,

this book does not offer a single page of original and unpublished work.

The book is just a nice way of having different versions together, with new commentary and explanations from Christopher, and the great illustrations from Alan Lee.

The way it was marketed is certainly confusing, and led many people to expect a complete story in more of a novel form.

Comments

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